Unusual Natural Behavior Destroying the Environment
Deepak Kumar Kundu
Economist
CEIP 2, BWDB
When inundated India and Pakistan by divesting flood, Europe was on fire. And while one side of China is experiencing a severe drought, the other side is submerged. And Bangladesh, natural behavior is complicated to understand. There is a drought right now and then flooding.
In the monsoon, it isn’t easy to see rain. The sky is covered with black clouds from time to time instead of white clouds floating in the blue sky in autumn. Monsoon rains fall in autumn. During the sweltering heat of midday, the body perspires heavily, but it feels cold once again by the evening.
People are upset by the strange behavior of nature. Moreover, it is man who has made nature like this. At that time, Rabindranath said, “Give back the forest, take the city, take as much iron as wood and stone.”
How much time has passed! The forest disappeared forever. Industrialization and unplanned urbanization are on the increase. The rate of global warming has accelerated, and the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions is escalating. And with so many tricks, nature has forgotten its norms. The current state of nature is insane.
The developed countries of the western world play a significant role in greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate website, says Canada ranks first in carbon emissions. Then the United States, Australia.
However, it is disastrous to Asian nations. This year, South Asia has seen unexpectedly severe rainfall. India and Bangladesh experienced flooding in May and June of last year.
The latest floods in Pakistan have claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people. The floods caused at least five lakh people to lose their houses. One-third of the country is underwater.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, visiting flood-affected areas in Pakistan, blamed greenhouse gas emissions for the floods. “We have declared war on nature,” Guterres said at a press conference. “Now nature is taking revenge. Due to these reasons, a destructive situation has been created.”
In the AFP report, Frederick Otto, professor of climatology at the Grantham Institute of Imperial College London, said about the cause of such floods in Pakistan. He said, “Pakistan’s historical records show that rainfall has increased in the region since humans started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
While these South Asian countries are flooded, the Middle East is warming even more. The United Nations COP 27climate conference will be held in Egypt next November.
In the latest research report published in the journal Reviews of Geophysics before this conference, researchers say that the average temperature increase rate in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region is 0.45 degrees per decade. And during this period, the average temperature increase rate in the world is 0.27 degrees per decade.
These statistics are presented based on data available from 1981 to 2019. The research covered Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Iran.
Studies have shown that the Middle East is suffering, and the region is also largely responsible for climate change. The Middle East, which is wealthy in oil, is on course to rank among the top global producers of greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the region is forecasted to exceed the European Union in a few years.
Along with increasing dryness in the Middle East, Europe is getting hotter. Eyes are burning from the flames. This summer, flames have decimated Southwest Europe. Wildfires have burned thousands of hectares of land in France, Portugal, Spain, and Greece. In the fire, hundreds of people perished. The UK has declared a national emergency due to the heat wave.
The weather in China is peculiar. China had drought on one side and flooding on the other from June to August this year. During this period, Guangzhou experienced severe flooding in the southern region of China.
In that situation, the temperature has increased abnormally in the central and northern parts of the country. A few days later, a ‘yellow alert’ was issued in China due to intense wildfires.
At that time, the Chinese government said about adopting the National Climate Change Strategy that climate change has serious adverse effects on China’s natural environment.
Deforestation, filling wetlands, water harvesting for power generation, and irrigation activities have increased the risk of flooding.
